


Applied Science

by Sakiku



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Competency, Kink Meme, Medical, Other, Repair, Science, Self-Repair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:58:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakiku/pseuds/Sakiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perceptor was definitely going to assimilate some medical repair modules if they got out of this situation. Some medical tools besides fields patches would be nice, too. And Ironhide certainly wasn't making the situation any easier. Maybe he should get a wrench of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Applied Science

** Applied Science **

Ironhide was _heavy_. Even perfectly balanced on Perceptor's back so that most of the gravity force exerted by Ironhide's mass was channeled down the vertical struts of Perceptor's leg assembly, the mech still had 2.8573 times his mass.

It was times like these that Perceptor debated the wisdom of having chosen a non-vehicular alt-mode. Then again, it wouldn't have helped him much because the weapons specialist's motion control was completely disabled. There would have been no way to load up Ironhide once Perceptor was in vehicle mode. And he doubted the transport would have been any less strenuous on wheels than it was on legs.

Taking small, stilted steps with his legs aligned as vertical to the ground as possible, Perceptor doggedly moved on. Any deviation from a perfect right angle caused the gravimetric strain to be absorbed by his hydraulics and actuators instead of the more durable struts, and while they were perfectly capable of doing so for short bursts of time they weren't built to take long-term stress.

At least he had found an unused road where his nearly quadrupled weight didn't cause his pedes to leave easily traceable footprints.

“Can't you go any faster?” Ironhide asked moodily. He hadn't been very happy ever since a lucky parting shot by the Command trine had taken out his motor relays to the degree that he could only move his head. He had been even less happy that Perceptor was his only mode of transportation, and had let him know it vocally.

Perceptor frowned. “If you would like me to actually _reach_ that human warehouse, which is still three kilometers off, then, no.”

Irohnhide grumbled, but thankfully fell silent again.

There was something grinding inside Perceptor's chest cavity, but he ignored it just like the slow warnings that there was an unusual heat build-up and some unhealthy chemical reactions going on inside him. First priority was to get to shelter so that Starscream and his trine didn't find them again immediately with a fly-over. Then they would have to think of a way to get back to the Ark. Or at least of surviving until whatever distraction that had prevented Prime from sending help as soon as they lost com contact, was over.

Finally, the warehouse became visible through a copse of trees. It was isolated, no other human buildings in the vicinity. For the last kilometer, Perceptor still needed almost a breem, hardly faster than a walking human.

Disabling the alarm systems was so easy he didn't even have to stop and link up to anything; although he was no hacking specialist he could do it with the standard wireless transmission capacity he had while still moving from a kilometer out. Within a klik the security system was his, cameras showing only what he fed them, doors opening automatically in front of them.

With a groan of overstressed systems, Perceptor let Ironhide down from his back and dragged the mech -- under plenty of Ironhide’s colorful cursing -- into the warehouse. Such an undignified procedure was necessary because the entrance door was far too low to walk in. Thankfully the ceiling height inside was more than enough to stand up comfortably, and they had plenty of space that wasn't taken up with human wares.

After making sure that all gates were closed and no telling drag marks led to their hideout, Perceptor shunted the warehouse security equipment to a tertiary processor. Unsuited for Cybertronian needs as human surveillance might be, it could still provide some warning should Decepticons feel the need to track them down.

Then finally, he turned back to Ironhide. The hole through his upper left thoracic quadrant didn't look good; luckily though there was only very little energon flowing out. His power plant didn't sound damaged, and Ironhide's fields didn't feel weak or flickering the way they would with sparkchamber damage. The rest was largely cosmetic damage to surface plating. At least Perceptor hoped so. Although he was quite knowledgeable about engineering and other applied sciences, he was by no means a medic.

Once upon a time, he had been part of an elite cadre of scientists in Crystal City. Perceptor had researched matters too esoteric for the average mech to know of, let alone comprehend. His usual studies were far out in the realms of the theoretical, right at the boundaries of the universe where time, space, matter, and energy became one, and where there was only the stark beauty of physical equations holding everything together.

The wake-up call of war had been harsh. Crystal City University had been an isolated haven of the premier scientific processor-spark combinations on Cybertron. Isolated – but not isolated enough. Their knowledge had been courted by Tower Lords, funding and sponsorship in return for scientific advance and marketing rights. An age-old symbiosis where both parties had benefited.

Through that connection to the Tower Lords, they had attracted Megatron's attention. Instead of valuing their potential for creating and making new inventions though, Megatron only saw them as a bargaining chip. So, when the Tower Lords hadn't unconditionally bowed to the Lord High-Protector's wishes, Megatron had demonstrated his... dissatisfaction most viscerally.

It was fortunate that Perceptor had been away on a social function of his sponsoring Tower, normally one of his most hated duties. That day though, had he remained at Crystal University, he, too, would have perished in the explosive discharge when a singularity harvester prototype for a new class of space-bridges had been sabotaged. They had found pieces of mechs as far as Protihex.

Two vorns later, Perceptor had joined the Autobots, bringing his wondrous research down to brutal reality. And the war had continued, forcing him to reach for more and more fields of application, simply to stay alive. The moments he could revisit his old work simply for the joy in it, were few and far between. Survival -- both of himself and his Autobot comrades -- always came first.

“At what rate are you losing fluid pressure?” Perceptor did his best trying to estimate the severity of Ironhide's injuries, but he was not certain how significant his diagnosis was. Maybe he should have assimilated a couple more repair modules. He had done his best with a quick field patch, but moving had had priority over anything but the most severe wounds.

“Coolant 34 mVU/s, Energon 15 mVU/s, hydraulic pressure sensors slagged b'yond the pit. Doesn't feel like I'm loosin' any though.”

Good. One concern less. Without hydraulic fluid, restoring motor control would be futile. With it though, there was a chance that he could get Ironhide mobile again. “Your loss of motor function is only due to electrical and mechanical issues then?”

Ironhide's vocalizer spat snort of static. “If you can call that hole through my spinal relays 'only', then sure.”

“No chemical injuries?”

“What? How'd you come up with that one?”

“The projectile still lodged in my chassis seems to be the carrier of a very strong acid. Fluorosulfuric acid, if my chemoreceptors are correct in identifying the metallic salts.” Also, next to the temperature increase from the exothermic reaction, he was starting to feel the acid eat quite painfully into neural wires.

Compared to humans, Cybertronians remained unaffected by much stronger acids because they weren't made of easily denaturalizable proteins. Also, the heat emissions by a violent acid reaction did little to affect them. However, with an acidity constant low enough, even noble metals like gold and silver could be made to dissolve. Even worse, some acids reacted with the silicium compounds found in processors.

It was lucky that they were on Earth. On Cybertron, acids had been much more of a danger to Transformers because of the rarity of water. Just enough water to form an aqueous solution for the acid to protolyse, and thus unfold its metal-destroying potential.

On Earth though, water was one of the most common compounds. Even without a medic’s special supply of binding agents, it was easy to neutralize the acid simply by diluting it with great quantities of H2O. Perceptor was actually surprised the Decepticons had decided to use such an easily opposable weapon.

It did not mean though that the acid would not do great damage if left untreated for much longer. “If you are stable, I should take care of my injuries first before seeing to your repairs.” 

Ironhide's optics flickered and his vocalizer spat static. “Then get to it, mech, are yer crazy? Meltin' away beneath me an' never say a blip? I'm not gonna bleed out tha next couple joors, an' selfrepair's already takin' care of things!”

Ah, very good. Perceptor had feared that the weapons specialist's repair nanites had been taken out together with his motor control. To know they were still functional was a great relief.

Nodding at Ironhide, Perceptor made his way to look for a suitable H2O outlet. His first priority needed to be to remove the shell that apparently contained the acid, and then to neutralize what had gotten into his internals before it ate into his processors. To his dismay, the only spigot he found on the inside of the warehouse had a diameter of less than 10mm, and not a lot of pressure behind. At least the building _had_ running water, and there was even a large human-sized bucket next to it.

He sighed and started the water. First, he would have to get rid of the shell so that he didn't inadvertently flush more of the acid into his systems. And it was going to hurt very badly – what mediocre programming skills he had were more geared towards application programming, not system programming. Also, he did not possess medical access codes to downgrade the severity of the individual error classes and thus reduce the pain levels.

He would have to manage as it was.

Sitting down and bracing himself against a support beam of the warehouse, Perceptor calculated the angle he had to twist his torso at to gain access to the shell still lodged inside his thoracic cavity. To his dismay he discovered he would have to bend several of his already bent armor plates to be able to gain purchase on the projectile, and then dig his claws into the mess of already-severed and melting wires and tension cables beneath. Muting his vocalizer, he got to it.

It took several overrides of his automatic shut-down failsafe triggered by the overflow of error messages. By the time he could put the shell on the ground next to him – cracked and deformed, but thankfully neither broken nor able to disgorge its entire contents – Perceptor's vents were running hot. Error management always demanded a lot of energy, and it took nearly a klik until his exception handling routines had processed the error stack to non-critical levels.

Now, to neutralize the acid.

He picked up the full pail of water -- barely larger than a tea cup in his servos -- and considered how to best apply it. In lack of a better option, he loosened his armor plates and simply poured the liquid into the hole the injury had left. The resulting short-circuit of screaming, acid-bared wires nearly triggered his automatic failsafe again. However, he had to repeat the procedure four more times until he deemed the report of his chemical receptors within safe parameters.

The only thought that endured through the excruciating overflow of errors was that Ratchet was not going to be pleased with the damage the water and the electricity were doing to his internals.

By the time his exception handling reached manageable levels, his self-repair had at least taken care of the minor fluid leaks caused by the impact and subsequent removal of the acid shell. Slowly he unclenched his servo from around the human bucket. He had not been able to control his strength that last time, and the plastic had splintered in his servo like the inferior and thin substance it was.

He discarded it with a frown. He would have to look up the owner of the warehouse to reimburse him for the destruction of property. And to warn him about the acid the water had washed from his internals. Humans could be so easily damaged by it.

A quick systems check reassured him that his injury was well under control, and that there was no other damage requiring his immediate attention. The acid-stripped wires still sent out error messages, but it was nothing he could not divert to secondary processors. Also, he did not possess the necessary materials or skills to fix a non-vital injury of that kind. So he simply applied a patch of flexi-plating to close the hole in his armor and deemed his own repair done.

Then he refocused on Ironhide.

The mech had his head, the only mobile part of his frame, turned in Perceptor’s direction and was watching him. His condition, however, was worrying. His vents were working far harder than necessary to cool an immobile frame, and his optics contained the glow of energy-intense exertion.

“Are you alright?” he asked in concern and levered himself up to approach the paralyzed warrior.

Ironhide scoffed, but there was a glimmer of respect in his optics. “That’s what I should ask _you_. You looked like you were havin' some pretty hefty error-stack overflows there.”

“Ah, yes, I underestimated both the severity level of the error classes and the resulting stacktrace-sizes. Ratchet will be quite cross with me for neutralizing the acid in such a crude fashion.” While he was talking, Perceptor was running scans over Ironhide’s form. The red and white mech was holding his fields tight to his frame, but Perceptor’s sensors could easily detect the strain his systems were under. He frowned. “You appear to be further damaged than I initially assumed. However, I cannot find the reason for the high error-count you seem to be experiencing.”

Ironhide blinked at him. “You think it’s pain -- “ He barked a laugh, then shook his head. “Don’t worry, I can deal with it. Nothin’ wrong with me ‘sides the obvious.”

Perceptor’s frown deepened, but he took Ironhide’s statement at face value. “If you are certain. The Ark is still not answering my hails, and the possibility of Decepticon pursuit remains. I would like to try and reestablish at least part of your mobility so that we are not entirely dependent on rescue anymore. However, I do not possess much in the way of analgesic programming.”

The red mech snorted. “I saw that. Just shuddup and get on with it, I ain’t gonna break from a couple of errors.”

Perceptor could not quite classify the look in Ironhide’s optics, and so decided to ignore it. He removed the flexi-plating he had fastened to the warrior's front out in the field, inspecting the damage beneath. “I will have to establish a monitoring connection, and it would be quite helpful if you supplied me with your frame schematics. My repair skills do not extend to the level of diagnostics necessary for fixing a complex injury like yours without frame feedback or blue-print knowledge.”

There was a sharp look in Ironhide's optics, and his fields – what Perceptor could teek – flashed with a momentary pulse of wariness. Then, however, an abdominal port far from any damage, slid open. “Knock yourself out.”

Perceptor snorted and plugged in. “I think you prefer me online to perform the repairs.”

The data stream Ironhide had loaded the port with opened up for him, and schematics were the first thing that flowed through. Of Ironhide's thorax only, but that was enough for Perceptor's purpose. He did not need to know how exactly the red warrior's frame had been modified to support a pair of plasma cannons that should rightfully demand more energy than a mech of Ironhide's frame type produced. However, Perceptor had his suspicions, which involved quite a bit more scientific theory than one would expect from a soldier of Ironhide's disposition.

Isolating the motion cortex both in the schematics and the error-stream took nearly a klik. Matching it up with the damage took another. There was triple redundancy for the motion control lines, but the first instance had been taken out by physical damage -- the wires severed; the second one contained a mixture of severed wires and connections that had been knocked loose; and the third instance had not been capable of withstanding the energy flows of what Perceptor was quite certain was an illegally installed Subspace Siphon. The energy released by subspace particles that were pulled into realspace and subsequently disintegrated there under heavy radiation, would certainly be great enough to power plasma cannons of Ironhide’s size.

But he was not there to admire Ironhide’s technology. A preliminary analysis showed that the third instance was far beyond his repair skills, and that the secondary one was largely inaccessible to him due to its placement. So the only way to get Ironhide mobile would be to somehow reconnect the first instance.

It would be a hard task. He did not possess any solder, and his equipment was sorely lacking. He did not have any of the internalized tools a medic would have; the only other way he could think of joining the wires together was welding. Simply twisting them together would never hold up to the stress of a moving mech.

“You are not, by any chance, in the possession of a welder, are you?” he asked the soldier, barely hopeful for a positive answer.

And, indeed, Ironhide stared at him as if his processors had decided to emulate microdrone programming. “You're askin’ me if I’ve got a fraggin’ welder? Do I look like a repair kind of mech?”

“I suppose not.”

“Slaggin’ right!”

Perceptor sighed. Next to assimilating more repair modules, he should probably, for the future, remember to carry basic medical tools that went beyond quick flexi-plating patches. He could think of only one way to jury-rig a welder, and that would be highly complicated. While his scope was capable of producing laser beams, its intensity was entirely unsuited for delicate repair work that needed no more energy than to melt micron-thin wires together. However, it was not beyond his skills to adjust the transformation matrix of his scope so that its output was reduced down to welding energies. It would just be highly uncomfortable, and would leave them defenseless for the nanokliks it would take Perceptor to shift his scope back to its weapons setting.

Entirely unamused, he started both the transformation process and inspecting Ironhide’s wound to see how he could reach the spot the motion control strand had been severed. He did not like it, but he had to bend several half-melted bits of armor out of the way to even make visual contact with the relevant injury. Ironhide’s vents stuttered a bit, but otherwise the warrior was silent despite the error-messages Perceptor could monitor on the medical feed. 

Pushing a few more wires away, Perceptor did his best to feel for the frayed wire endings and find those of the severed cable bundle that belonged together. It was very, very slow going, since there were nearly a hundred of them and they were not coded in any recognizable way. He had not started yet to weld anything together; for one, it would be highly inadvisable to accidentally forge a connection between two unrelated systems; for another, he was still not quite done calculating the transformation sequence for his scope.

However, during his testing procedure, he noticed an alarming message from Ironhide’s systems. “You are leaking coolant again.”

Ironhide’s line pressure was falling quicker than he liked, far quicker than the initial 34 mV/U Ironhide had reported.

“I am?”

Removing his digits from the injury and trying to ignore how there was a relieved sound escaping Ironhide, Perceptor scanned to inspect his frame for the damage he appeared to have missed during the initial scan. “Yes, you are. It would be very helpful if you could aid me in pin-pointing the location. I will have to fix that first because the repairs will be strenuous enough even with enough coolant to prevent heat buildups from error-stack processing.”

Ironhide grunted sarcastically. “Try that hole through my shoulder. Pretty sure it’s there.”

If all patients were that willing to contribute to their own repairs, it was entirely understandable why Ratchet kept a supply of throwable wrenches nearby, Perceptor decided.

Lifting the warrior’s torso, he felt for the patch of flexi-plating he had installed on the other side of the hole. In a not very surprising turn of events, it was wet with coolant seeping through the seams. However, that did not help him in the slightest in detecting the origin. 

Using Ironhide’s schematics to determine the most likely candidates for being hurt, Perceptor wondered how that injury could have escaped both their notice this long. Any injury small enough for self-repair to close, should have already closed. But the coolant on Perceptor's servos definitely was fresh. And the only way to find out where it came from would be to inspect the injury more deeply.

“My apologies, this will probably be very uncomfortable.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgment, he pushed torn wires and scratched lines aside, wincing as they ground out against Ironhide's internal struts and each other. The amount of errors this action sent cascading through Ironhide's systems was staggering, and Perceptor was glad he was only linked on a medical monitoring feed. The red warrior's vents howled a protest of sudden suction and all his joints locked in a reflexive action, but Ironhide remained quiet beyond the whine of his engine. Not that he could move with all his motion control cut.

Perceptor grimaced a bit more but continued pushing. He needed to find the leak; overheating would offline Ironhide much quicker than a few sparking motor-relays – even if the latter were much more painful. 

However, the stats both his scans and his hardline-connection to Ironhide provided, showed a worrying trend the longer Perceptor kept searching for the injury, until it was too disconcerting to keep going. “Is the magnitude of the local extrema I can detect in the distribution of your electric charge, normal for you during injury?”

“Wha'?” Irohnhide's vocalization was slurred, and his optics were glowing as if he had imbibed high-grade.

Perceptor reminded himself that panic would not help any, and that the error stack-trace was high enough that it might account for Ironhide's incoherency. “I am concerned about your frame exhibiting several of the signs normally only present during states of high excitement. There are strong charges pooling in your capacitors, spikes where the difference in potential is as much as 2.5 MeV between adjacent wires. And there has been a significant rise in activity of your energon processing nanite cultures, which cannot be explained solely by the increased energy requirements of your autorepair and error management functions.”

The red warrior’s fields slipped briefly, but what Perceptor felt from them had little to do with pain. Certainly, it was present; however, there was an interesting mix of charge, impatience, embarrassment, and... arousal in them. 

Ironhide just stared at a point that was nowhere near Perceptor and gritted his dentae, fields fairly flaring with embarrassment. What an interesting response. Viewed from a certain perspective though, it made sense for warrior frames to have error-handling routines that did not depend on a medic being present. However, judging by Ironhide's reluctance, his method of channeling some of the increased charge for error-handling into pleasure generation, was decidedly non-standard.

Perceptor, relieved that it wasn't anything serious, hastened to reassure him. “It is fortunate that you are capable of inducing a strong gradient into your charge distribution, because I fear I must continue your repairs and I am only too aware that my analgesic programming skills are severely lacking. If you could tell me what you derive your electric potential from, will do my best to aid your efforts.”

Ironhide growled, even more embarrassment than before tinging his fields. “Don't put yourself out for me. Just fix me up and forget that ever happened.”

Perceptor frowned, but went back to searching for the coolant leak. “I do not understand why you are feeling ashamed. It is a very useful skill to have, especially in a situation like this. Additionally, it would ease my processors to know my repairs are not only causing you pain.”

The splutter from Ironhide’s air intakes was refreshing; the glare however was not. “I ain’t into pain!”

Perceptor's servos halted briefly inside the warrior's chassis. How had Ironhide come to that conclusion? “I never suggested you were. However, I am aware of how pleasure charge and the resulting system settings can temporarily reduce the severity perception of error classes. My only goal was to inquire about possible ways to ease the pain you are feeling, since I cannot help you with that in other ways.”

“You’re helpin’ with tha’ alright,” Ironhide muttered.

“I am?”

“Just shaddup and keep me from bleedin’ out and I’ll be happy.”

Perceptor was sure that, had he had the motion control necessary, Ironhide would have crossed his arms in front of his torso to accompany that scowl. But the warrior was correct; fixing the leaks was of first priority.

Partitioning off his reluctance, Perceptor tried to ignore the way Ironhide’s fields shivered with pain at every twitch of his servos. He encountered more severed wires, the isolation shorn off many further ones. According to Ironhide's schematics, they led to the lower ventral motion processor cluster. 

Not vital for survival though and something to take care of later. The leaking coolant was more worrying. 

Keeping an optic on the medical feed he was monitoring, Perceptor bent more wires aside and wished for another set of servos. Not that they actually would have fit into the narrow space of wires, actuators, electronics, and energon lines. He had to push a lot of cabling away to finally get to the source of coolant loss: a damaged valve seal. It was obvious that nanites had started to repair the injury; however it was in a place that rubbed against several tension wires and struts. Every single twitch of Ironhide's frame would tear it open again. Not to mention that some wires had slipped into the gap, holding it open.

The only reason they hadn't noticed the injury before and Ironhide hadn't drained dry yet, was the fact that warped plating had cinched off the coolant flow. Perceptor's efforts to repair the injury had removed the restriction, and so coolant had leaked out again.

Without a medic’s equipment, it was very tricky and slippery work to first remove the wires from the injury, and then affix a patch of sealant mesh. It was normally intended for energon instead of coolant lines, but for a temporary solution it worked just as well.

When Perceptor was finally done and removed his servos from Ironhide's internals, it took a while for the red warrior's joints to unlock and his cooling fans to dial down.

With a pained grimace, Ironhide grunted, “You should've been a medic. You've got their definition of 'uncomfortable' down pat.”

Perceptor doubted that, judging by his own experiences with both Ratchet and First Aid. “I disagree. A medic would have been able to write you a competent sensor block, so that it would have indeed only been uncomfortable.”

“Better uncomfortable than heat-stasis.”

Was that Ironhide’s way of thanking him? There was a curious dichotomy of feelings inside Perceptor. Satisfaction on the one hand, that he had managed to save Ironhide from fatal fluid loss; guilt on the other hand, that his repairs had caused so many painful errors. He wasn't used to his scientific fascination needing to be weighed against personal criteria.

Battle was different. His processors derived no joy from solving the admittedly beautiful equations necessary to aim and hit targets from several kilometers away. Simple calculations did not hold that thrill of bending and folding his processors into entirely new ways of thinking, of skimming vast theorem libraries, plucking out and weaving them together with his research until he had a proof for an entirely new theorem. There was no need for such exertions when simple arithmetic calculation sufficed. And so, he could look at battle as just another equation to solve, as another relativistically adjusted parabola to connect two points which were moving under their own vector fields.

Impersonal. Remote.

However, as soon as he could not ignore anymore that it was mechs, his core programming made him cringe away from inflicting damage. Even if it was done for healing purposes, and the mech was not only suffering as in this case.

With a small, internal shudder, he finally initiated the transformation sequence of his scope. Better get this done as quickly as possible so that they could go see a proper medic.

“I will start on your motion control now,” he told the warrior. “Please try not to move until I have finished welding _all_ your lines.”

Across the monitoring hardline he felt that Ironhide was about to ask, ‘And with what welder?’, but then the warrior’s optics went wide as Perceptor leveled his scope at an uncomfortable angle to get an aim for the wires. “Your’re gonna use your _cannon_?”

“For want of a more conventional gas or plasma welder, I have had to reconfigure my scope, yes.”

Ironhide scowled mightily as his fields suddenly snapped tight to his frame. “If I leave with more holes than I came in, I'm gonna take you to a trainin’ session you ain’t gonna forget for centuries.”

His protest, however, sounded more token than real, and from what Perceptor could feel over hardline there was no fear that Perceptor might injure him. In fact, the charge distribution in his lines edged even further towards excitement. Nonetheless, Perceptor found it advisable to reassure him. “While it is a somewhat unconventional use of my scope, I am fully capable of configuring it to a non-lethal setting. And, as you well know, my aim over such a short distance is good enough to perform even delicate welding. To avoid any accidents though, I implore you to not move while I am repairing you.”

Ironhide huffed, but his optics never left Perceptor's scope. “Are you gonna talk me to death, or are you gonna start any time this vorn?” 

Even with Ironhide’s fields clamped tight to his frame, Perceptor could feel the flare of arousal that surged through them. Very curious. Since Perceptor doubted the red warrior had lied to him when he had denied finding enjoyment in pain, Perceptor must have inadvertently triggered either the same preference as earlier again, or another one. It would not be outside the realm of the conceivable to discover that Ironhide derived pleasure from competent weapons handling. 

However, as the mech seemed entirely unwilling to discuss the topic with him, Perceptor remained silent and simply nodded at him. First, he ran another quick check of Ironhide’s system over the medical monitoring feed lest there were more leaks he had not discovered yet. Upon finding everything within acceptable parameters, he began matching the wires again. 

Once again he regretted his lack of equipment. If he were a medic, he’d have access to tweezers or other thin grasping implements to better maneuver the hardware. As it was, it took his entire concentration to first fit his digits into the small space, then take a hold of the correct wires, find an angle where he had a clear view to apply his laser, and lastly not accidentally weld his digits together with the other metal.

There were occasional grunts and twitches from Ironhide. Over the hardline Perceptor could feel that the heat from the laser and his ungainly digits set off many errors, not to mention the number of complaints that motion systems could finally send to Ironhide’s processors again with every new wire repaired. All in all, he was quite glad that Ironhide managed to keep himself as still as he did.

When he was done, nearly thirty klik had passed, and Ironhide’s entire cooling system was running on maximum. Perceptor had not dared interrupt his work to give the mech a break to cool down, because he had not been certain how long he would be able to hold the transformation of his scope. Also, it had seemed that the charge in Ironhide’s lines had been growing once again, and he had not been certain whether a break would have been well-received at all.

Taking a step back and finally transforming his scope back up to its customary position and setting, Perceptor completely ignored the roaring fans and the heavy teek of arousal as he unplugged. “You may move now. Please do so carefully, because the welds are only a very temporary solution that cannot take much strain.”

At first, only Ironhide’s digits twitched, but then gradually his servos formed fists, his pedes wiggled, and then, slowly, the mech sat up. The next thing Ironhide did was transform his arms into his plasma cannons.

“Well, whadd’ya know,” the warrior grinned as he got up without heeding Perceptor’s advice of being careful at all and some charge still making his optics glow. “You actually managed to fix me up.”

Perceptor bit back a less than genial response even as he was inordinately relieved to see the warrior mobile again. Next to repair modules, a welder, and some other medical tools, he would have to ask Ratchet for some of his wrenches. It certainly would be a welcome outlet to throw one right now.

“Then you can affix that patch of flexi-plating yourself, because we are not going to leave with that hole uncovered,” he responded a bit stiffly and went to the H2O outlet to wash the coolant and the welding slag off his digits.

Ironhide grumbled something that Perceptor did not care to listen to, but the sounds of metal being pressed against metal -- the flexi-plating patches were covered in glue on one side to make them stick -- were reassuring. 

“You can still transform with that hole in your plating?”

Perceptor looked up to see Ironhide stare at him calculatingly. He frowned, catching on to Ironhide’s plan of leaving in their transformed states with Perceptor being carried along in Ironhide’s alt-mode. “None of my transformation circuits have been damaged; however I am not certain whether my repairs of your motion control will hold. And you are still running quite hot,” he added pointedly.

The mech snorted. “Meh, wouldn’t be the first time I ran with a charge. I ain’t gonna stay here ‘n’ be a sittin’ duck in case those slaggin’ seekers come back, just to take care of some charge. You're commin’ or not?”

After investing this much into Ironhide’s repairs, there was no way Perceptor was going to let the mech head out on his own. After all, he would not be surprised if Ironhide managed to slag his own systems again before arriving back at the Ark, and then Perceptor would at least have the pleasure of telling the mech he had warned him. “I am coming.” 

“Good.” Just before he ducked beneath the low exit of the human warehouse, Ironhide looked back at him, optics guarded. “It’s competence.”

Perceptor blinked. “What?”

“What I ‘derive my charge from’. It’s competence.”

Without waiting for an answer, Ironhide slipped outside, sill stiff and much less controlled than he would be in full repair, but at least it was under his own power. 

It took several nanokliks for Perceptor to decode the entire meaning of Ironhide’s words. Then he shook his head and smiled slightly. Apparently, Ironhide did not think quite as lowly of him as he made it seem. After all, if he was not mistaken, Ironhide had been carrying a non-error-caused charge ever since Perceptor had started his own repair. 

It did not mean though that he would not ask Ratchet for some wrenches should such a situation ever occur again. Hoping that the fixes would hold until they both were in med-bay, Perceptor joined Ironhide outside.

**Author's Note:**

> Kink-meme prompt: <http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/10462.html?thread=11122398#t11122398>
> 
> _A mech of author's choice and Perceptor (or another equally stoic and competent mech) are stranded after surviving a skirmish with some Decepticons. They're both wounded, Mech A more seriously than Perceptor, and on the run, presumably hunted down by more 'Cons. They find some place to hide and Perceptor, after stabilizing A as well as he can, proceeds to self-repair his own damages. He might have to pull part of his plating apart in order to stop internal energon bleeding, or he has to perform some other kind of operation, and he has to do it while enduring most of the pain, since for some reason he can't shut all his pain receptors off._
> 
> _Mech A (who is in too bad conditions to help, maybe he got his hands damaged too) watches him and finds himself being unexpectedly turned on by what he sees._
> 
> _Bonus points if after being done with his own repairs, Perceptor starts working on Mech A's damages and the tactile stimulation is enough to have A overload or almost overload, in spite of his conditions (hence the masochism)._
> 
> \--
> 
> Didn't get to the sex part, but... yeah. My attempt at that fill.


End file.
